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Simply put, a Gong Bath represents an ancient, multi-dimensional form of sound healing meditations that continue to be practiced today. Predating the Bronze Age, gongs have been used for meditation, healing, and communication purposes for nearly 6,000 years. As rightfully described by Gong Master Don Conreaux, “the gong is known as an instrument of transformational power” and translates to “an engine of power releasing tone resonance and complex harmonics that are transferred to the recipient.” It is considered a bath as you are bathed in vibrations from the instruments.
Today, Gong Baths may utilize one or several gongs, in addition to various other ancient and/or new age instruments. Journeyers who participate in these sacred sound healing meditations often receive (and manifest) experiences that oscillate between the intensely introspective and the extremely cosmic, often fusing into some combination of the two while helping you shed that which does not serve you. And that’s just the beginning…
On a production level, a Gong Bath works by participants laying down with their heads closest to the gongs, allowing the vibrations of the gongs to wash over them the crown to the root. This allows energy to be discharged from the fingers and toes. Participants are encouraged to lay in complete stillness to allow the vibrations the opportunity to move stagnant energies.
Gong Baths may be hard to accurately describe to those who have not yet experienced them firsthand, but we can safely assert that they are indeed very strong, particularly during crescendos, and will leave you feeling refreshed and resonating with notable healing effects on your body, mind, and spirit.
How does a Gong Bath heal?
There are several levels that sound has the power to heal.
Vibrations
Everything vibrates at a particular frequency. People, places, things all produce a vibration. You are vibrating right now, singing a song that is your unique tune. Within you, each of your organs is vibrating at a specific frequency. Use the analogy of an orchestra and each of your organs is a different section. When each of these sections is tuned, it creates harmony within your body. Illness manifests when something within you is out of tune. Stress, trauma, anger, and environment are just a few factors that could cause your body to experience dis-ease. They can manifest as physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual disturbances.
Attunement
Each participant carries their own dischord within them as they lay in savasana and the vibrations wash over them. The Gong Bath provides resonance for the dissonate vibrations to tune. The body instinctively wants to heal and knows with which frequency to sync effecting the body on a cellular level. By providing something to which to tune, the body can tune to the universal song and return to a state of harmony.
Entrainment
Entrainment is a method of synchronizing our brainwaves, which fluctuate, by producing a stable, solid frequency that our brains adjust to and then match. Your body contains an autonomic mechanism that syncs you up with strong, external rhythms, pulses or beats, a phenomenon known as entrainment. Actually we entrain to the rhythms around us all the time, although we are not aware of it most of the time. Our bodies will sync with the vibrations from the instruments. Clearing away discord and creating harmony within your body.
Healing Aspects
This tuning has a myriad of effects on participants. Sound healings like gong baths create a sense of relaxation in the body reducing stress, inspire altered states of consciousness, is deeply rejuvenating for the body, and can help move emotional blockages from past and/or current trauma.
Ailments
Healing with sound can improve or cure many ailments including, but not limited to:
Psychological/Psychiatric and behavioral disorders including autism, depression, learning disabilities, and developmental troubles
Anxiety disorder
Stress
PTSD
Pain
Mood swings, or negative emotions, such as sadness, aggravation, anger, self-pity, and heartbreak.
Emotional healing
It can also bring about:
Clarity and balance
Relaxation
Improved memory and concentration
Improved sleep (both in quality and quantity)
A stronger immune system
Improved creativity
Heightened awareness, both of the self and the environment
What to expect during a Gong Bath.
Visions
Journeyers have recounted psychedelic-like experiences in the form of visions and experiences in the ether. Visions may lift you up and carry you on a journey down your ancient path, deep into the present, further into your dharmic path, or just around this crazy universe.
Creative Problem Solving
Gong Baths are a form of meditation. As you are able to stay present with the journey and clear your mind of chatter, you may experience moments of epiphany when inspiration or solutions present themselves. These thoughts are good to acknowledge in order commit them to memory, but you are encouraged to not follow them too far down the rabbit hole and to rejoin the meditation. In these cases, it is nice to have a journal to write down these thoughts.
Emotional Healing
Our emotions are vibrations. The harmonics of the sound healing hold a space for our emotional selves to be expressed and disharmony can tune to the overall harmony of your body. You may laugh, cry, feel angry or scared, as the journey penetrates your emotional body. Many experience a sense of relief and even at times bliss after a sound healing.
Physical Discharge
Gong Baths are some of the most powerful, intense, and loud sound healings. It is common for the body to vibrate, even to the point of shaking, as the vibrations course over and through you. Often referenced as a type of exfoliation, you may experience debris such as stress and tension being scrapped from your body as the vibrations clear your body. The strength of the soundwaves and overall vibrational forces generated during our Gong Baths can activate stagnant/tight energies dwelling throughout the body. Some experience an energetic discharge in the form of shaking throughout the body, often times out of the hands and the feet.
Transpersonal
Tap into the space of universal vibrations and tune to the cosmic song of consciousness.
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